This article presents a flamingo bird, which in the Russian regions can be found almost exclusively in zoos. An amazingly beautiful bird, mesmerizing with its magnificent grace and unusual feather color, is sung in songs. Where does flamingo live? What are the conditions of their captivity, features and habits, what do they eat?
You can learn about the life of this bird of fabulous beauty by reading this article.
general information
Only five species have a family of flaming. The most common is ordinary. This is a fairly large bird, whose weight reaches 4 kilograms. The smallest of this family is the small flamingo.
The favorite nesting places for red flamingos are islands, lagoons of the sea coast and salty swamps on the shores of lakes. Before we learn in more detail where flamingos live, we will present a brief general description of the bird.
Description
On average, the body length of the bird is 1.4 meters, the weight ranges from 2 to 4 kilograms. As a rule, males are heavier than females. The colors of feathers in birds are the most diverse, but red-pink prevail. The neck and legs are long.
Despite such large sizes, these birds feed on plants and crustaceans that live in the waters of shallow lakes.
Kinds
As noted above, in the world there are only five species of the bird in question.
The aforementioned common flamingo has several nesting sites in the southern territories of Europe. Dwarf lives in Africa. Three species are common in America: yellow-footed (or Andean), Chilean and short-billed.
All these species together represent, in fact, a flamingo squad.
They lead a sedentary lifestyle, and only the kind of pink flamingo that lives in the northern parts of the earth is migratory.
Where does flamingo live?
Photos with these beauties fascinate and enchant. I can’t even believe that in nature there are such miracles. And where do they live in natural conditions?
They live in Europe, Asia and Africa. Settled in ponds with favorable conditions for their stay. However, not all of these places are suitable for them. In this regard, areas of wintering and nesting of flamingos can be scattered even over distances of thousands of kilometers.
In colonies, there are usually several tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of individuals.
Whether flamingos live and where in Russia can be found further in the article.
Most birds are in shallow water. Usually flamingos break away from the place hard and reluctantly. This happens when they are in danger or there is a need to change the place of feeding.
They run away for take-off for a very long time, and, having taken off, they continue to even run through the air. Further birds fly with outstretched legs. A flock of flying flamingos presents an amazingly beautiful sight against the backdrop of the azure blue sea and blue sky.
Nesting
Where flamingos live, where the bird settles in, nests arise at some distance from each other. They represent the shape of small turrets built from shells of shells and silt. The height of the nests is 50-70 centimeters.
In clutch, usually 1-3 white eggs. Chicks already covered with fluff hatch, sighted and very active. They leave the nest after a few days, and at about the age of one month, they change their down-dress to another. On the 65-80th day of life, chicks of flamingos acquire independent flight skills, and the filter apparatus is finally formed in them.
Maturity occurs at the age of 4 to 5 years. These birds are monogamous and usually nest in colonies, very closely adjacent to each other.
Within the entire current range, there are only no more than 22.5 thousand flamingos. Of great importance in reducing the number of birds played a decrease in sites suitable for nesting.
Nutrition
Where flamingos live, there is a food suitable for it: rich in algae and organic matter, with countless crustaceans, mollusks and worms.
Some species consume algae blue-green and diatoms. They are looking for food in shallow areas. Shallowly lowering their heads under the water, they rummage at the bottom of the reservoir with their beaks. Moreover, the head is located in a strange way: the crown is almost touching the bottom, the upper jaw is located below, and the lower one is above.
Parents feed the chicks with a “burp”, which contains, in addition to food, a semi-digested secretion of the glands of the pancreas and lower part of the esophagus. It should be noted that this light pink liquid is similar in nutritional value to mammalian milk. It also has carotenoids.
Brackish and fresh water from rain birds use for drinking. To do this, they lick on the plumage drops of water.
In natural conditions, there were cases that flamingos lived for 34 years.
Pink flamingo
This bird's plumage is pale pink, with purplish-red wings and black wings. Parts of the head are not feathered (eye ring and frenum) are red, and the beak is mostly pink.
Where does pink flamingo live? In Europe, these birds nest in Las Marismas (Southern Spain) and in the reserve at the mouth of the river. Rhone (Southern France). She also lives in Africa (Lake Morocco, South Tunisia, Northern Mauritania, Kenya, Cape Verde, south of the continent).
Pink, like other species, prefers to settle on large lakes with salt water, in estuaries and sea lagoons.
You can meet a bird of this species on the lakes of Southern Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and India.
And where does flamingo live? In Kazakhstan. In Russia, it nests at the mouth of the river. Volga, in Kalmykia, in Dagestan, in the Stavropol and Krasnodar Territories.
Flamingo red
This bird species lives on the islands of the Caribbean Sea, on the coast of northeast South America, as well as in the south of this mainland (Galapagos Islands).
Flamingo red has plumage from pink to purple or bright red.
Flamingo small
Of all modern species, the small one has the smallest size. Its body length is only 80 cm (others more than 100 cm). In this species, the beak has a keel descending into the depth of the beak. Mostly algae is his food.
When searching for food, the small flamingo does not lower its beak to the bottom, but simply leads them from side to side on the surface of the water. It nests on the salt lakes of Tanzania, Kenya, and also off the coast of the Persian Gulf (Lake Sambhor in India).
Andean flamingo
Its habitat is salt lakes located in the Andes at an altitude of 2500 meters (north and center of Chile, southern Peru, northwest Argentina and western Bolivia). They prefer lakes, and often waters with a high content of gypsum, caustic soda and hydrogen sulfide.
Adult flamingos are painted in white-pink or scarlet color. Beautiful pink-red colors are due to the pigment entering the body of birds with crustaceans (food). The wings of this bird are black, the legs are yellow.
Flamingo james
Birds live in the Andes of Bolivia and in Northern Argentina. Food - diatoms. There are colonies of this species that live in the harsh conditions of the mountains.
This species, also called Short-billed, is very rare.
Chilean flamingo
This is a relatively short-legged flamingo found in South America. On mountain lakes (Andes) it can live together with the species of short-billed flamingos.
The color of the Chilean flamingo is light: scarlet or white-pink. Red shades are developed on covering wings, therefore flamingos received the Latin name meaning "fire-winged". The legs are greenish, but the knees and legs are red.
Conclusion
And where does flamingo live in North America?
These birds belong to one of the oldest bird families. Their remains, which are closest to modern forms, date back 30 million years ago, and fossils of more primitive species - more than 50 million years.
They were found in places where today flamingos do not live: some parts of Europe, North America and Australia. This suggests that in the past, these amazing birds had a wider habitat.